


Diminish. Try Again?

by lynndyre



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Dark, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Postpartum Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 07:43:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6146461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her dreams, Michelle kills her baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diminish. Try Again?

In her dreams, Michelle kills her baby. 

Sometimes it's like it was on V-day, with a knife, only Eggsy's friend doesn't call, or the door doesn't hold. Sometimes it's different. 

Sometimes she holds her under the tap, until the bubbles stop. Sometimes she presses the pillow down. Once she just ignored the screaming until it stopped, and never went near the crib again- and spent the rest of the dream refusing to look, knowing what was in there.

After that one, she listened from the doorway until she heard Daisy sucking her thumb. 

The clinic doctor told her 'It's quite usual for survivors of V-day to suffer from nightmares or other symptoms of post-traumatic stress'. The doctor was looking out the window, around the walls, fingers tapping. Michelle wondered how many people you could kill in under a minute if you were a doctor, if you had medicines and scalpels and needles, and not just a butcher knife. She went home no proper answer, and a scrip she knew she shouldn't fill (but would). 

Eggsy is her bright spot. He always has been, but now – whatever Lee did, whatever that man came about after, Eggsy's in it now. Michelle thinks she's not meant to know much, so she doesn't ask. She's gotten good at not asking. She's good at not seeing, too, but now she wants to look, wants to take in every bit of Eggsy as a man, as a _gentleman._

Maybe being saved by her son should have been embarrassing. Maybe it would be, if she were stronger. But Eggsy's always been so easy for her to love. Baby Eggsy was a joy. Being pregnant was an adventure, she and Lee were in it together, and being a family instead of a couple made them stronger. And like a stupid, romantic cow, Michelle wanted that joy back, and thought having another baby would do it.

'Cept Dean wasn't Lee. And being pregnant again wasn't an adventure, it was a miserable slog of crying and ugliness and hoping he'd hit her face instead of her belly. Hoping he'd like the baby once it was here.

He didn't.

Worse, she didn't.

With Eggsy, she'd been weepy but then happier, and Lee told her she was beautiful, and Eggsy smiled and reached for their faces. With Daisy, Dean asked her how long it'd be before she was back in shape. And Daisy only cried. And cried. And cried. 

Part of Michelle has wanted to kill her baby for a long time.

***  


It's night, and Michelle is dreaming. Tonight there's no killing, instead she dreams the afterwards. Talking in NHS group therapy, sharing their sorrows, petting another woman's hands and knowing they're both free of guilt, because how could they- how could anyone- have fought off that control?

She can start over, dream style, and she does, walking through a beautiful, empty foreign city. She doesn't recognize it, but the light is white and clean instead of London grey, and Eggsy's out there somewhere doing secret things with an umbrella. Michelle drifts there, all alone, and utterly free.

She wakes up to Daisy crying down the hall.

Michelle doesn't turn on the light. There's enough from the streetlight outside to see shapes of furniture, dark pictures on the walls. She likes this place, loves it to bits in the daylight, but it's still unfamiliar. Real soft, through the wall, she can hear Eggsy singing. It gets quieter again, fades out into the London city noise, and Michelle hugs herself in the dark.

Things are better. They are. Dean's good riddance, even if Michelle misses being held. With Lee's -- Eggsy's people looking out for them, maybe Michelle can get Daisy in daycare. A decent one. Go back to work, since hiring's up to replace people who died. Or go back to school, just for a bit. Take a course.

If Eggsy got out of it all, and got her out, and the world's gone to fuck and come out – however it is now...

Michelle wants to do something to feel like a person again.

The floor is cold, but Michelle curls her toes and walks down the hall to her children.


End file.
